Lost Soul by Forest Ostrander (red queen free ebook txt) 📖

"Not even close," I said in his ear. "You'll never find it. I'm going to laugh watching your mind go insane with this little goose chase." I smiled when I noticed Brandon squirming a bit.

"Did someone leave a window open?" He asked his group of boys. Everyone shook their head no and I grinned.

"Ah, so there is a way to make you squirm. This will be fun." I grinned from ear to ear. My plan to make him freak already forming in my mind when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning around I came face to face with Nathan who looked at me with a don't-even-think-about-it look.

"What? I was only going to make him squirm."

"That would not be wise. Best to keep your presence a secret."

"Why?" I asked.

"It will give you the upper hand. If he knows you are stalking him right now, who known’s what he will do." I sighed. He did have a point but to admit that would not come out of my lips. I would not give him that satisfaction. I may like him, but a girl still has her ego to uphold.

"Fine," I said to him. "But don't expect me to stand by doing nothing for long."

"Oh I don't. You will have your revenge soon. Right now, at least one of the boys is going to be in custody. I even left the nice police officers a note."

"How did you do that?!" I now looked at him with new eyes. Was he hiding something from me? I noticed by his smirk that he was indeed hiding something from me.

"You don't need to know that right now." I frowned.

"Aww come on! Why can't I find out?" I batted my eye lashes at him, hoping it would weasel out something from him.

"Because knowing you, you would do it just to smite what I say." Damn it, he was getting to know me well. My face must have showed my disappointment because he laughed at me.

"It's not funny!" I said through gritted teeth.

"No, you're right. Its hilarious!" And with that he was back to laughing his head off.

"You sound like a hyena," I spat, hoping the insult was enough to persuade him from laughing even more. It must have worked because he whipped the tears out of his eyes before saying.

"That may be, but you should have seen your face. However, I am not a scavenger."

"They don't just scavenge you know. They hunt too." Now he was insulting me. This boy clearly has no shame. Turning back around I listened in on their conversation, I did my best to ignore Nathan who was leaning over my shoulder as well.

"You know, personal space is a thing these days," I said. I was still furious with him and the further he was from me the better.

"Ya, but when you have been gone for 100 years, you tend to not obey that law of human behavior." I stuck my tongue out at him. I knew it was childish of me but right now I could care less.

"So where do we begin to look?" I whirled my head around to see Matt talking.

"I would say somewhere around here," Brandon said pointing to a spot at a park.

"But a park is hard to search!" I heard one boy say, I could hear the small whine in his tone.

"Do you wish to join our dear Forest too?" Brandon said in a cool tone but I could hear the threat under it. He meant what he said and the boy instantly shut up.

"I didn't think so. Now, we will search the park, leave no stone unturned. Knowing Forest, she will have hidden it in the least obvious spot possible."

"So how will we know where to look then?" A younger boy chirped in this time.

"Can you believe it? Now they are bringing in 15 year olds!" I said exasperated.

"Ya, well who would ever suspect a kid?" Nathan answered. I could tell he too was not pleased with them bringing in a pre-teen to this mess.

"You won't. Forest is a careful girl and if she did hide the key in the park she will have covered up her tracks. This is why I want you to bring dogs with you."

"Dogs?" another red head boy said. "What will they do for us?"

"The dogs won't be real dogs. But you can't go into the park and start uprooting things right and left. That will get people onto us and bring the police out. The dogs will be robots that will look and act like a normal dog. You are to act like any normal dog walker and the dog’s nose will be able to pick up any metal or non metal objects under the ground."

"So is the key there?" I heard Nathan say in my ear.

"They aren’t even close. The key is in no park anywhere in the world. Granted it is in the most obvious spot but its not in a park."

"Where is it?"

"I'm not telling you. You won't tell me how to do a note I won't tell you where the key is," I said crossing my arms across my chest in a defiant way. Nathan sighed.

"If I told you would you tell me?"

"No," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because with the way you want to know where the key is so badly makes me kind of suspicious of you." And I was being truthful when I said that too. Why would he want to know where the key was so badly? All he should focus on is helping me get the boys put away, not where the key is located.

"I want to know so I know where to look and get there if they should get close."

"My answer is still the same. No." I turned my head away from him now and continued to listen in on their conversations.

After about three hours more of watching the boys plan out their stupid park search, Nathan was nowhere to be found. I figured he was mad at me for my refusal to tell him where the key was but I could care less. He should not be that concerned about the key. Sitting on a bench in the park where the boys were searching, I thought back to how desperately Nathan kept asking for the key's location and each time I thought about it I felt a stronger sense that Nathan was not being all that truthful to me. I sighed, why must everything be so complicated? Why was I thrusted into this whole mess? All I really wanted now was to go back to my old life before the whole key incident. I wanted a normal life and to be once more alive. Looking up at the sky, I wondered if this was all a sick plan of God's. Was he purposely up there making my life complicated? Does he enjoy seeing me struggling with everything? Standing up, I began to head to my house. I was exhausted and all I really wanted to do right now was just lay in my bed and just let time slip by me. I could let my guard down a bit with the boys, they were nowhere to being close to find out where the key's location was. And thanks to my stubbornness, neither was Nathan. I still couldn't get over that nagging feeling that Nathan was hiding something major from me. And the worst part that really irked me was the fact that the thought of him ever betraying me hurt me. Damn this horrible thing called love. And damn my heart for falling once more to a guy. Maybe he might not betray me? Maybe what he said was really true? I thought. A part of me wanted to believe what he was saying but another part of me, the part that always told me to not listen to my heart, was telling me to not believe what he was saying. I was torn between two feelings and I didn't like it one bit. All throughout my life I was never torn once between my feelings, I was always sure of what I wanted but now? Now it feels like my control was ripped out of my hands and thrown out there for everyone to use against me.

"Hey! Small fry!" I looked up to see Nathan hovering above me. Scowling I said.

"Don't call me that. What do you want?" Landing in front of me he smiled.

"Just wanted you to know they are questioning Sean. It seems they have now re-opened your case."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked skeptical. "If you think telling me that will get me to tell you where the key is you're wrong. I won't say where I hid it."

"I don't want the key. How many times do I have to tell you? I'm here to help you, not the damn key. Ya I want to keep it safe too but obviously you won't trust me that far yet."

"No kidding," I said under my breath.

"What?" He asked.

"Nothing, nothing at all Nathan," I said. He looked at me skeptical and I just glared back at him.

"Well, looks like you're not pleased with the information I brought you so I might as well go," I watched him go back up and didn't even bother to stop him. Granted my heart wanted me to but I knew I needed to snip this in the bud before it got too out of control. I needed to once more get control back into my hands. When he disappeared I continued on to my house.

When I stood outside of my front door, I looked at my three story house, it felt so strange looking at it. Sighing, I headed through the door and instantly was spotted by three dog heads popping up at my presence. Smiling I waved.

"High guys," I said to the dogs. They didn't bother barking which was a shocker to me, usually when anyone goes in the house they are attacked by three dogs barking like mad. Instead they just looked at me and laid their heads back down.

"Well nice to see you too," I said grumpily. You'd think they would be more happier to see me. Heading past them I walked into my room and was surprised to see nothing was missing. Instead, everything in my room was tidied up.

"Huh, grandma must have went on a cleaning spree in my room." I headed up the stairs to my loft and sat on my nicely made bed. The foam underneath sank under my form which made me smile. I remember I used to always love laying on my bed, the foam made it much more comfortable then the spring mattress I used to always sleep on before I purchased the foam. Laying down on my soft pillow which folded against my head I reached under my fluffy one and pulled out the key to the vaults. Twirling the strange looking key around in my fingers I smirked.

"At least that lesson in picking up things came in handy," I said to myself. I sighed and put the key back under my pillow. I was surprised no one thought to look in my room but at the same time